Canadians across the country woke up to some startling news on Thursday. Air Canada has decided to not renew their contract with Aeroplan provider, Aimia, and are instead branching off on their own in 2020 to create their own in-house loyalty rewards program.
The announcement came from an Air Canada press release, which quoted CEO Calin Rovinescu as believing that this decision was “the right one for our customers, our employees and our shareholders”.
The program won’t officially come into effect until June 30, 2020, and until that day, the program will remain intact and be “business as usual”. This means that you can continue using and collecting your Aeroplan points for the next three years, but as of June 30, 2020 the following will take place:
- miles earned from Air Canada and Star Alliance flights will be credited to the new program
- customers will then be able to redeem those miles for rewards, which will include Air Canada and Star Alliance partner flights
- Aeroplan miles earned up until June 2020 will stay in your Aeroplan account, and will continue to be subject to the conditions of their program
- Air Canada will continue to offer Aimia redemption seats for Aeroplan members after June 2020
- frequent flyers will continue enjoying Air Canada Altitude status recognition
- all Million Mile program qualification activity and status will also be honoured
The company says that the reason for starting their own loyalty program is because of the $10 billion worth of investments they have made into improving the flying experience on Air Canada flights and that through their own program “they will be able to take better care of customers by making decisions in real time that address specific needs”.
While Air Canada says that customers will safely be able to use their Aeroplan points after the June 2020 expiration, the Toronto Star reported that the CEO of Aimia is not so sure and that there are still a lot of details to be worked out.
Click here to read more about the Aeroplan and Air Canada loyalty program.
